


Corroded legacies and forgotten swords

by beautifulwhensarcastic



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, F/M, Wales is a separate kingdom, historically inaccurate because who needs the existence of the British Empire, late 19th century, so is Scotland while we're at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 07:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15335247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulwhensarcastic/pseuds/beautifulwhensarcastic
Summary: Having escaped from Wales in his early years, Arthur now leads a life on US soil. After one of his victorious, though illegal, fights he's visited by a mysterious woman. Who knows dangerously lot about him.





	Corroded legacies and forgotten swords

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenfoxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/gifts).



> This story is a birthday gift to the talented Kat who, just like Arthur, has a crush on Mage. Happy Birthday, Kat!
> 
>  
> 
> Story is set in the late 19th Century. Historically inaccurate - the existence of the British Empire is ignored, instead Wales, Scotland and England are separate kingdoms. There's no reason for it to be set in the 19th Century, it's simply for aesthetic.

* * *

 

Fist full of crumpled bills, Arthur grins at his former mentor.

"Always a pleasure, George."

Despite years spent among penniless, dirty locals on this rotten soil, there's still a foreign drawl in his voice, identifying him as one of the pitiful immigrants every bloody American looks down on.

As it has been when Arthur was a snotty kid stealing money (more or less successfully) from half drunken men crowded around the ring, George doesn't say much, only looks pointedly at him.

Now Arthur doesn't have to steal. He wins the money.

Illegally, but wins.

His knuckles are bruised, blood stains the strips of fabric wrapped around his hands. He's used to the stinging and numbness in his fingers. It fades away quickly, anyway, unlike the rush in his veins.

Pleasant haze always buzzes in his body for the rest of the night after a fight. A better high than the shit he's seen people taking in the stuffy alcoves at Mikey's brothel. He could do the Green Fairy, but there's worse crap that shreds brains and he very much prefers to have it beaten out of his skull, if he had to choose his method of going.

"Arrogance is a step away from losing." George's tone is neutral, but the warning behind his words is clear.

He'd seen fighters, blinded with pride, falling off their pedestals. Confidence needed to establish dominance in a fight becoming hubris inevitably leading to their doom.

Arthur has cockiness in bulks by nature, he already teeters on the edge. So far he hasn't shown any unspoken desire to fall, though at times George wonders if the boy's life isn't headed for that precipice anyway.

Fate seems to be breathing down Arthur's neck.

Men like Arthur are made for great things - whether success, or the greatest fall. George hopes it's the former. Over the years they've built a strong if tacit friendship, a bond that would oblige George to aid Arthur even at the cost of own life. And George quite likes his life.

"I'll keep that in mind." Arthur flashes a crooked smile and stacks the money into his shoes placed among the rest of his belongings on a stack of wooden crates.

With a light shake of his head, George turns around and leaves him alone. The crowds have left the arena about an hour ago and Arthur's half-conscious opponent was carried away by his companions.

Arthur had been waiting for his share of money, which always took time due to George's scrupulosity. Plus, first George had to pay the coppers who gladly turned their gaze away from an illegal fighting ring then later spent the money in pubs and brothels.

His own gains Arthur keeps in hidden coffers, taking only small amounts for basic expenses, and occasional bonus for Molly and others. If asked, he'd say he saves up for the darkest hour, though he never defined what that might be.

He'd never assume it may be here right now, with the two people entering the empty factory ground.

The black man in a dark frock coat, though much older than Arthur, could easily be a fighter with his broad frame and hard expression. The woman with him, however, doesn't fit the place.

Admittedly, quite a few women came to see the fights - be it for the thrill, or just to see men getting beaten instead of them for a change. Not the upper class ladies, though.

Not like the one walking towards him now.

Dressed in a blue and cream dress, with lace and fabric layered atop a small tournure, she wouldn't be mistaken for someone of a lower status. Ringlets of dark hair draped over one shoulder, topped with a riding top hat on her head. Her skin, Arthur notices as she comes nearer, is too clean and delicate to pretend she doesn't come from big money.

A lady like her shouldn't be here. And she sure as hell shouldn't be looking at a scoundrel like Arthur the way she does - with cold interest.

Arthur's aware his looks are considered desirable by both men and women, a fact he used on a few occasions, but he has no intention of selling his ass to a potentially deviant, bored female.

"Ma'am, I think you've taken the wrong turn." He says, unwrapping stripes of sweat and blood soaked fabric from around his hands.

She inches even closer, studying him intently. Intensity of her gaze becomes unnerving, raising the hair on the back of his neck. There's something fascinating, but eerily creepy about her.

"I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." Her voice is surprisingly husky, tinted with an accent, though much different than his own. It's French, he thinks.

Her eyes never leave him, mostly staying on his face as if she's trying to see right through him.

"I'm flattered, Ma'am, but I don't provide off ring performances." Arthur smirks at her.

He glances at the man who has taken a place by the exit, making it obvious Arthur's going to have some difficulty leaving before the conversation is over. Arthur's not really interested in fighting if there's no material gain in it, but he's quite sure he'd win. Not unscathed, but alive at least.

"I don't want you off the ring." The woman's tone is a lick of cold on Arthur's skin. It's grim, immediately erasing any ambiguous suspicions he's had.

"Not a horse to be bought either." He says flatly, angrily yanking on the fabric on his other hand.

He's not much of an honourable man; he'd do a lot for money and comfort, but never allow anyone to own him.

"Every man has a price." She replies, not remotely alerted by his visible irritation.

She walks around him slowly, skirt of her dress brushing against Arthur's legs. Only a faint, spicy scent follows her movement; very pleasing, compared to heavy, stifling smell of women bathed in perfume. Catching a whiff of it, Arthur muses he wouldn't mind finding out if she smells of warm spices all over. 

The woman stops at his left side, much closer to him than before. Her eyes drop to his bare now hands where linear scars mark his palms.

"Though, it's not always money." She adds.

Something in the way she looks at his scars makes Arthur uneasy. He clenches his hands into fists to hide them from her penetrating gaze.

He has no desire to hear of prizes she'd promise for whatever it is that she wants. To win, he assumes. One fight, or more. Perhaps the man who came with her is the champion she plans on introducing, though Arthur still doesn't see the reason she's taking her time talking to him.

"You want to stage fights, lady, you go talk to the chief. But I assure you that George will throw you out on your ass for the mere suggestion. Lady or not." 

George, for all his cunning proceders, is an honourable bastard. He might break some laws, but moral code is sacred to him. Besides, he'd lose the business if people found out he's selling out fights. 

"I want you to fight for real-" Her gaze briefly lingers on the stains of sweat soaking the fabric of his shirt where it clings to his body.

Arthur smirks, noticing it, but his smile falters when she finishes her thought with a mercilessly indifferent tone.

"-to the death."

No, it's not indifference, he realizes. It's determination forged in fire. A power Arthur feels could crush his own will.

Though her words sound cruel, her face is anything but. Hazel eyes, speckled with amber, reflect a distant sorrow. There's a cord of vulnerability in her and Arthur has to will himself not to follow it - he has a foolish tendency to take under his protection those who got hurt, often paying a lot for his soft heart. 

He's also got a feeling he'd be the one falling for her, not the other way around, if he lets his guard down.

So he squares his shoulders and crams his stained belongings into a canvas bag, feigning disdain. 

"Not my game either." Arthur shrugs, then adds with a bitter snort- "You looking for someone off his chump who gets off on beating people and tasting blood, you got the wrong address, sweetheart."

Not a flicker of anger appears on her face at his words and he wonders if there's anything that could prickle her composure. 

"And yet you fight... as your father had."

It strikes Arthur like a ram, punching all air out of his lungs. 

He has no idea how she knows anything about his father, but he's got no intention of getting tangled in that web. 

"I fight because money from the docks is shite." 

It's what he's been telling himself all along. George's little blood ring offers good money. Having them guarantees better sleep and a happier disposition. Deconstructing a few jaws provides addittional bonus, on which he doesn't dwell much. 

Athur always suffered a peculiar thirst. However, not for blood. 

Corner of the woman's mouth twitches in amusement, but not even a ghost of a smile curves her lips for longer than a blink of an eye. Swiftly, she turns. She walks around the stack of crates and takes a stand opposite of Arthur. She looks him dead in the eye.

"You fight because it's unevitable." Her voice lowers, impatience with his reluctance to cooperate becoming clear.

"And you win, because it's in your blood, Arthur Pendragon."

Arthur's features momentarily harden, muscles in his jaw twitching. 

"Who  _the fuck_  are you?" 

He left his family name on the other side of the ocean, buried in his parents' ashes. No soul out here knew him as anyone other than Arthur Camlann* - a drop in the sea of wretched immigrants, broke and hungry like them all; not a lost heir to the Welsh kingdom.

"Someone who can help you reclaim your legacy. Before you let it completely decompose." She says dryly.

She's annoyed with him. Arthur pissed off enough people in his lifetime to recognize it.

His gaze drops to her lips as she speaks and for a brief moment he's tempted to check if she tastes as she sounds.

Would her cunt be as deliciously tart too? 

"Chinks have appeared in Vortigern's armor," her words snap him back to attention.

Bile forms in Arthur's throat at the mention of his bastard uncle. Wariness pulls his muscles taut as more questions about the woman's identity fill his head. Nothing indicates, however, that she'll reveal anything to him.

"He's losing influence. And balance." Though stated as a cold report, the news seem to please her. As if she were waiting for Vortigern's fall for many years.

It also shows in the passionate rise of her voice as she continues- "He can be overthrown. People can be freed.  _You_  are the one to beat him."

He'd lie, if he claimed dreams of killing Vortigern haven't filled his mind. But he has a functioning brain, too, which tells him Vortigern has hundreds of soldiers at guard. Possibly more scattered all around the kingdom. If anyone in Wales recognized Arthur, he'd be beheaded within a day. 

Besides, he never longed for the throne. He was barely five when his mother's lady-in-waiting took him onto a ship to search safety out of Vortigern's grip.

Morgana tried to undergird the memory of what they've left behind, but there wasn't much time nor spirit for it as she spent twelve hours a day working as a seamstress and the rest taking clients into her bed, just so she could support both herself and a growing boy. 

Among black gravel and industrial smoke there was no place for grand memories of green, fruitful lands and shiny armors. No place for honour in piles of manure.

"I dunno what you got in your head, lady, but I ain't got no legacy. 'Tis not my fight." Arthur shakes his head and throws the bag over his shoulder, ready to leave even if he has to punch his way out of here.

With the tension prickling under his skin he would welcome an opportunity to release some of it. 

"Perhaps-" She steps in front of him, not the least intimidated by his frame towering over her. "Perhaps I would believe you, if not for the nightmares you try to drink out of your mind. They're not only memories, are they? It's guilt over abandoned destiny."

Gritting his teeth, Arthur steps around her. The man by the entrance makes no move to stop him, neither does the woman. However, after merely a few steps, Arthur himself halts. 

A heavy pull gnaws at him from the inside. Maybe it's the guilt she's accused him of, though Arthur never identified any of his feelings as guilt. He's made a choice not to regret any of his decisions, no matter the outcome they bring. 

He's not going to blame himself for the choices made by others, either. 

"Maybe Pendragons' destiny was to fall." He says gravely, without turning. "There's nothing left of what you call a legacy. Only an exiled ghost, with nothing but a bunch of fives."

"There's the sword..." 

She keeps a straight face, not a single muscle twitches when Arthur momentarily turns at her words. Her pale skin seems to catch all light and for a brief second she appears to him as a dream, a wicked creature from his nightmares vailed in beauty attempting to lure him with the promise of a lost heritage.

He thought the blade to be lost. The glint of blue, so characteristic for Pendragon's sword, dimmed and died in the depths of the lake.

Apart the crown, which Vortigern ordered to be remade, the sword has been the insignia of power. A mark of rightful claim to the throne. 

Its importance, though Arthur never understood it, nearly cost Vortigern the throne he killed his own brother for. Most of the lords, as well rulers of neighbouring kingdoms, refused to accept him as the new king of Wales not for his treason, but because he didn't have the Excalibur. 

"You tellin' me you have it?" A sudden rush of blood flows into Arthur's hands, making the scars on his palms burn. 

"Yes." Her curt answer provides no further explanations. Yet somehow, it's enough for Arthur to believe her. 

If she were Vortigern's spy, especially one of his lethal Sirens, she'd kill him when he least expected it. Luring him back to Wales is not a game even the deadliest of Vortigern's murderers would do. Too big of a risk to have the remnants of the resistance use the rumor of the born king being alive and back to start an uprising.

No, it would be smarter to kill Arthur here, so no one learns the truth. So his name remains forgotten.   

When he makes no move to leave the faintest of twitches curves her lips, in what he can assume is the only smile she'll grant him with. At least for now. 

She walks past him toward the exit, this time not sparing him a second glance. Her spicy perfume caress his senses. 

"I will see you tomorrow in the port, Mister Pendragon." She orders him without turning once. "Lady Of The Lake leaves at six."

Arthur's gaze follows her. There's something different in the way she moves, he notices. A grounded strength, quite recognizable for a fighter. Though he doubts she fights with her fists, she's too sneaky for that. 

Perhaps she masters a weapon. He could see her with a glint of a blade in her hands, or fencing. Keeping distance and still delivering wounds, that fits her. 

"I don't even know your name! Hey!" He calls after her, but she doesn't stop for a second. 

Arthur takes a few hasty steps forward, stopping when the man accompanying her moves from his spot. Instinctively, Arthur's body tenses, readying for a fight. The man, however, slowly walks over to him, with his hands courtly clasped behind his back. 

From up close he's smaller than Arthur first assessed. Merely a few inches over him. 

He looks older, too. Could be the age of his father, if Uther lived today. 

"You're gonna make sure I follow the lady's wishes, chap?" Arthur asks, eyebrow quirked, partly hoping some fight errupts if he annoys the man enough.

Instead, he receives a flash of an amused grin. The whole scene had to be entertaining for him, though it didn't seem the encounter surprised him at all.   

"You will follow." The man says, with a certainty that irritates Arthur. But it's his impeccable accent that hits Arthur the hardest. It brings memories of forgotten people, pulling at a sore wound inside Arthur's chest that never fully healed.

The last person Arthur heard speak withouth a blemish was Morgana, singing a lullaby to her newborn baby who died a few hours before she followed it into the Annwn. A lullaby Arthur vaguely remembers his own mother singing to him.

The man's speech means the mysterious woman has to be entwined with the resistance, or whatever is even left of it.

In his younger years Arthur used to follow the scraps of gossip and tales Welsh and English sailors spilled over pints of beer, learning of resistance's fruitless fights and sabotages. Given the years that passed, he bet on its complete extinction by now. Gods know, Vortigern's quite efficient in disposing of unwanted obstacles.

Arthur eyes the man curiously, wondering if his uncle's politics messed up the lord's business, or if he's one of those idealistic bastards among which Arthur never wanted to find himself.

What an irony to discover he might prove to be one. 

"And they call her the Mage."

Color drains from Arthur's face at his words, fists clenching as they had every time anyone mentioned Merlin - the head of the Mages clan, who sworn to always protect Pendragons and whose name little Arthur screamed until his throat dried up.

But Merlin never came to save his parents, never sought him out either. No Mage had. 

Until now. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *Camlann is considered the place of Arthur's final battle where he suffered a mortal wound. In the story I'm using it as a form of foreshadowing and also a place where his parents were murdered (which is why he took it as his last name).
> 
> Annwn is the Otherworld/Underworld in Welsh mythology.


End file.
